eSpecially Ben

Clearly, Ben's brothers were more excited about the trophy than he was about it. But then again, they were more excited about the whole baseball thing too. Oh well!

The  shoes  Ben is wearing are especially for use with AFOs. Every six months, Ben is allowed to receive new braces (ankle foot orthotics), shoes and socks through insurance and Medicaid. If for some reason his foot should grow too quickly in that amount of time, we could ask for special permission. We have not had to do that yet; luckily six seems like the magic number. After being cast, it takes about 2-3 weeks for the braces to be made. We use Level 4, a company that makes its own braces. Our orthotist, Steve, is involved throughout the process, to ensure Ben gets the best fit. This time, before we went in for casting, Ben visited an orthopedic surgeon. I wanted a new set of eyes on Ben's pronated feet, which seemed even more pronounced lately. The surgeon suggested Botox, something he did not do, but our neurologist certainly would do. After the trip to the neurologist and a very definite "no" about her office injecting the Botox, we were sent to a p h

We waited six months to receive Ben's NOVA Chat 10 . It arrived about three days before the burglary. It sat on the kitchen counter with one sheet of paper covering it. It looks like an ipad . That it did not catch the thieves' eyes, I can only believe it was Ben's guardian angels hard at work. This is the homepage for a helper to use first. Each button goes to a field of  two for Ben to make a choice. After many hours of setting up a simple platform we can use with Ben, we started using it just two days ago. We all expected that it may take a year or even more for Ben to get the concept. I believed that if we stuck with the process, he would eventually "get it". It took 30 seconds or less for Ben to "get it". Let me give you a few examples to illustrate what I am talking about. In each of the examples below, Ben was given a field of two choices. 1. Smoothie or Cottage Cheese, Ben chose Cottage Cheese. He ate it, three different meal times.